The Purpose of Commercial Radio [350 words]

Commercial radio stations are often free for listeners to tune in to however this mean that they must find some other way to earn money. These radio stations earn their profit or revenue by airing radio advertisements on the station in between songs or shows, other companies pay the radio stations to air their ads on their station, this is how commercial radio is funded. The main purpose of commercial radio is to generate money so that it can continue to air however there are other smaller purposes as to how it generates said money.

One of these purposed is sponsored content. There are often times when are particular show on the radio station is sponsored by a company or product. This means that a company is supplying the station with money in return for advertising or publicity. However this is slightly different from normal advertisement as companies are not paying for a specific time slot for there advertisement but instead for publicity throughout the course of the show, this can range from the station stating the sponsor every time the show come back on or goes off before and after ad breaks or can sometimes even tie in to a part of the show such as competition where the prize is a product from the company that is sponsoring the station.

Another purpose of commercial radio is seasonal awareness. This is when a commercial radio station takes advantage of seasons or national holidays to generate more money. For example, during December most radio stations play a lot of Christmas songs and hold event or competitions related to the season. One well known example of this is Capital Radio which holds events such as the summertime ball in summer and jingle bell ball near Christmas.

Competitions also play a part in the purpose of commercial radio they can also generate money form the radio station as most competitions on radio stations have a small entry fee however many people listening enter the competitions so despite each individual payment only being a small amount the end result is still a profit.